As any nostalgic 25 – 30 year old will tell you the mid-80s were a truly magical cinematic time for any kid to grow up in. In the wake of George Lucas’ original Star Wars trilogy, we were bombarded with a cluster of imaginative, mystical live-action fantasy adventure films, which eagerly promoted a genuine sense of mischievous fun and adventure.
Tales of typically normal excitable youngsters going on epic adventures that lifted the heart stirred the soul and haunted our dreams. But it was the palpable sense of adventure that really convinced, giving us youngsters an achievable sense of daydream adventure – long before the internet or Xbox-claimed adolescent imagination.
Why the mid-80s? Give us another span of time where there was an equally audacious flux of films that dared to lift the lid on Pandora’s Box to capture our imagination and fiendishly tape into our most primal kiddie fears? So forget the CGI-bloated likes of Harry Potter, Golden Compass and the new Narnia adventures and let us divulge to you hecklerspray’s definitive Top 10 Cult Classic Fantasy Adventure Flicks from the Mid-80s…
1. The Goonies (1985)
How could you possibly compile an ultimate mid 80s film tribute list without including this cult classic from Superman helmer Richard Donner? It’s the tale of a group of young suburbanites going on a (frankly ludicrous) adventure to thwart the council from demolishing their family homes by seeking hidden pirate treasure in booby-trapped underground lairs. But what makes it more believable is its incredibly gifted and likable young cast. Move over Harry Potter, these kids have charisma! With the likes of Mikey, Chunk, Mouth and Data on your team you won’t need magical powers to accomplish a distinguishing characteristic. And yes that’s No Country For Old Men’s Josh Brolin playing Mikey’s teenage brother! And who could forget The Fratellis? The archetypal kiddie movie bad guys, headed by super-bad ass (but sweet as pie in real life – if you believe the cast commentary) old trouper Anne Ramsey. And it’s got Spielberg on executive producing duties and a great cheesy but catchy Cyndi Lauper music video to go with it – what more could your young hearts ask for?
2. Return To Oz (1985)
We weren’t really fans of the original Wizard of Oz movie but when Fairuza Balk came waltzing along with her talking chicken Billina and C3PO-type robot companion Tik-Tok we were overwhelmed by the results. And it was fucking scary too! What with those sinister, sub-Starlight Express Wheelers skirting around, those crumbling and gruesome claymation monsters and that hideous witch Mombi, with her eerie glass cabinet selection of limitless heads. No annoying musical numbers, no cowardly lion or clumsy scarecrow, (well not until later on anyway), just a gothic nightmarish adventure with startling baroque imagery in a mysterious, distant land where you will find ham sandwiches hanging on trees and an old man modelling red slippers.
3. Labyrinth (1986)
In our opinion Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly was never better than when she played the feisty 15-year-old babysitter Sarah in Jim Henson’s spellbinding adventure. David Bowie camps it up as the glamorous Goblin King, along with a slew of Henson’s imaginative puppeteer creations – and we don’t mind those catchy dance numbers either.
4. Young Sherlock Holmes (1985)
Anyone remember the haunting chanting of the Egyptian Rametep? The hallucinogenic stained-glass window knight that suddenly broke away from its frame to demonstrate the impressive power of early CGI? Or the opening shocker where a turkey dinner comes alive to attack its consumer? Well that’s all from this cult special effects Oscar-nominated Sherlock Holmes prequel adventure – which was subtitled (Indiana Jones style): The Pyramid of Fear. Dreamt up by early Harry Potter helmer Chris Columbus, (with Spielberg once again on producing duties), this was a notable highlight for the young cast of unknowns involved and proved a chilling sweeping and deadly adventure, a world away from the archetypal cosy Peter Cushing/Basil Rathbone movie outings.
5. Explorers (1985)
Explorers was the warmhearted tale of a trio of kiddie science geeks who – masterminded by computer whiz-kid River Phoenix, (debuting alongside a painfully young Ethan Hawke) – convert a junkyard carousel car into a floating capsule capable of travelling into outer space. Although looking more like a glorified wheelie bin than anything NASA would conceive the capsule is their gateway to adolescent freedom and they use it like any other teenage kids would use it: to travel the world, explore the universe and of course peep on girlies getting undressed.
6. The Lost Boys (1987)
“Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It’s fun to be a vampire” went the encouraging tagline to this impressionable coming-of-age puberty flick (masking as a vampire movie). The Lost Boys is about two teenage brothers who rub shoulders with a leather-clad clan of blood thirsty vampires following their relocation to a new town in sunny California. A sequel is currently in the works, (welcome back Corey Feldman as Edgar Frog), but the original still holds up today as an irreplaceable nostalgic horror fantasy adventure… and Kiefer Sutherland is still the cool kid you wanna be when your strange.
7. Dark Crystal (1983)
Set in a dark and vast mystical world this is the penultimate moment when muppet maestros Jim Henson and Frank Oz ventured into the limitless realm of the feature film. It’s a testament to the sheer power of suspension of disbelief that we willingly surrender our soles to a land populated entirely by puppet creations, ranging from the grotesque eagle-like entities of the feared Skekses to the almost sickly sweet Gelfings. It’s not exactly ‘live-action’ but we like it.
8. Flight of the Navigator (1986)
This is the film that embraces the journey of a 12-year-old whizzkid who goes on a bombastic time-travelling adventure when he’s abducted by an alien space-capsule, piloted by a robot that looks bizarrely like your dentist’s examination lamp. But it’s a heck of a lot of fun even 20 years on! Hell, it’s even got a young Sarah Jessica Parker in it as an annoyingly friendly (when hasn’t she been annoying?) laboratory assistant.
9. Highlander (1986)
If you don’t get too distracted by Christopher Lambert’s dodgy Scottish vocals, or the ridiculously complex plot, then Highlander is still a thrilling adventure yarn to rival Flash Gordon. And just like that said sci-fi film it’s got a truly marvellous signature score by Queen. Fuck the sequels, reassert yourself with the masterly original.
10. Repo Man (1984)
Alex Cox’s superb science fiction film stars a young Emilio Estevez as Otto: a punk rocker who becomes the ultimate car repossession professional after helping to steal a wanted vehicle. The twist in the tale is that there’s some strange glowing object inside the boot of the car that’s got the attention of government agents and UFO enthusiasts alike. With classy support from veteran character actor Harry Dean Stanton this was the film that put the ‘punk’ into punk rocker.
[story by Oliver Pfeiffer]
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Okay I am looking for a older movie. I remember a guy is in love with a girl and she has a ring. She throws it in the river he jumps after it and when he finds it surfaces. He find the girl is missing. I think was taken by a demond. I remember her dancing around in a black outfit. She spinning and dancing I believe she ends up dancing with the devil or some monster. I also believe ther are unicorns in this movie can anyone help
Some of that almost sounds like Legend (Tom Cruise and Mia Sara) but dont remember the dancing in it though, has been a long time since I’ve seen it.
Yeah it was Legend. The “dance” scene is symbolic of her ‘dancing with her dark side.’ Tim curry is flipping awesome in that part.
I’m trying to remember a film I watched when I was a kid probably late 80s or early 90s. There was a group of 4 teenagers working in a store(possibly a hardware store) in america they are driving home in the dark and something happens and they end up in another land I remember it being like a fairytale land at one point they are held in a cell underground and at the end someone gets married. I also remember there being a factory where they make cookies or sweets and I think the film was usually on at christmas. Please help does anyone remember it??
that sounds like Babes in Toyland (1986) with Drew Brrymore, Keanu Reeves
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090683/
I am trying to find the name of this movie I watched as a kid I remember it was about this high school boy who finds like this laser gun in the river then he starts killing people with it but he was like a loner and he thinks it’s from aliens but it’s from the military
his name is zeke I think it might be called the star gazer but not sure from late 80s to early 90s
i think the movie your talking about is lazerblast sounds like what your describing its and 80s movie
PLEASE HELP…. been looking for this classic movie about a group of travelers that go on these crazy adventures, one scene portrays the story of 6 able men where they carry out all the gold one man can carry that they tricked out of the king. or sultan. the characters all had special abilities and they went to many distant places and lands i believe. thanks…
You might be thinking of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Im trying to find a movie that I watched on accident when I was a kid and my parents were pissed about it. I dont remember much but theres a kid/guy hanging out and his dog comes into the garage or house and he isnt paying attention but his dog starts to morph into something alien like. Thats really all i remember. TY to who ever can help me find it.
that certainly describes a scene in The Thing (1982). Your parents certainly would have been pissed. Not sure about a ‘guy hanging out’ though so I might be wrong
I’m trying to find a movie I watched as a kid but I don’t know much about it, although I do remember one scene in it where a floating sphere follows some young adults/children around as they caused havoc, I remember a scene where one of the persons involved escaped an explosion by getting into the inner of a tyre, rolling down a hill to safety…. Any ideas?
Moonbabies, it’s on Netflix.
I’m looing for a movie but all I remember is a a monster that wraps its wings around someone and when he opens them all that is left are the bones.
Help please,,,,
The movie you want is called Beast Master
I’m searching for a movie that would come on in the late 80′s early 90′s. Don’t know much about it but I remember in one scene there are these people the are tiny and some kids (two boys) are messing with them. I think the kids had special powers or something like they were gods. at the end of the scene one of the kids hits the people with a hammer I think and they are teleported somewhere. idk
I have memories of a movie that would have come out during the 80′s, or was a pretty vivid dream… I remember that a girl walks through a mirror but gets trapped on the other side. Somehow the key to her escape had something to do with glowing cherry tomato-looking objects in a glass case. Sound familiar to anyone?
There were that many weird, trippy movies in the 80s, which absolutely no kid ever should have seen but somehow loads of us did, that what you describe could probably have been in any of them! But if it involves going through a mirror, your first port of call would probably be any of the many, many adaptations of Alice in Wonderland / Alice Through the Looking Glass. Be very wary if you happen across the Jan Svankmajer version, though – it’s a deeply disturbing hallucinatory nightmare. The guy was once part of a disastrous Soviet experiment on LSD and, oh boy, does it ever show in the films he made afterwards.
I have been thinking about a movie I watched as a kid around 1984/85 that terrified me. The only thing I remember is a pyramid, a jungle an evil eye perhaps within the pyramid :\ I would love to find that movie…any idea’s?
Hi All. I’m searching for a movie that I watched in the late 80s. It’s about a boy who I think was in his early teens and may have been named John B B John who befriends a devil and they get into mischief. I don’t remember anything else, except for the song that they sang throughout the movie:
We’ll have lots of fun, John B B John
Two friends make a team
For devils, a scream!
Does this sound familiar to anyone?
Little Monsters
A movie that was more of an action movie where an alien or presence would take over someone and that someone would pretty much go on a killing spree. All I remember is a bombshell of a woman who would seduce some unlucky fellow and kill him and the only way to stop it was to kill the alien or thing while it was out of the body in transit to the other.
This sounds like The Hidden, a VHS classic starring Kyle McLachlan!
I’m trying to remember a movie from when I was a kid. All I can remember is a small clamation goblin that multiplies and an old house that was falling apart and they end up using model rockets to defete a monster! Please help, its driving me nuts!
The movie is called “The Gate.”
Hay Guy’s Okay theres a movie i remember ALWAY’S watching as a little kid and im trying to find out what it’s called, the only thing i remember is the main charecter was a young girl …POSSABLY a boy but im remembering a girl in my head LOL AND there was a scene where she’s walking through a mystical forest or swamp and some creater’s are by her side helping her through the movie and there’s a talking door and lott’s of wierd Cool mystical thing’s….sorry that was probz NO help at all …help if you can though thank you. and i know it’s not (labrynth)
Right, I hope somebody could help me. I don’t know alot about this movie. I remember seeing it when I was really young, but only a brief clip. It looked like a sci-fi/fantasy drama. It was about two teenager children, a boy and a girl, meeting each other, and then they find out that they are connected in a spiritual/cosmic way, like they are twins or something, or they realise that they have the same powers. It seemed like it was an 80s/90s film. And it wasn’t an animation, it had real life actors in it. And there was a bit I distinctly remember, where the boy and the girl do some strange magic in front of each other, and they realise they are the same or something like that … I have no idea what it’s called. If this sounds familiar to any of you, please let me know. Thanks.
I have 2 movies that I need help figuring out their titles. For the first movie, the only scene I can remember is of a young girl walking and she has extremely long hair. While she’s walking, her hair gets caught in a bush and she somehow ends up underground where there are a bunch of young children put to work.
The next movie is of a rich teenager who loses her ability to talk. Somehow her family forgets about her and she even becomes their maid. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
I figured out the second movie, ‘maid to order,’ but still need help figuring out the first movie.
Im trying to remember this movie i saw in the 80′s maybe early 90′s when there is this sick kid or something who makes a trip to california and to some arcade place with 3d glasses and everythings real trippy and colourful looking i think they might be in a game maybe. Someone please help me thats all i can rememeber since i did watch it when i was like 10. Think the movie had CALIFORNIA in the title
I’m trying to remember a movie that came on either in the 80s or 90s… All I remember about is is this little girl riding in a car really disliking her older sister. Then she ends up in this fantasy land and her sister is this princess who’s being forced or tricked into marrying this evil man. And he’s trying to turn the younger sister and the things helping her into these mindless troll like things. But the girl saves her sister in the end and wakes up to realize it was just a dream.
Hi Guys,
I try to find out the name of an 80′s or possibly early 90′ sc-fi film. The only thing I can remember that aliens secretly landed on Earth and this one kid (12-14 years old) got susspicious about her school teacher. One day , he happended to walk into class and found her swallowing a frog, which was half way sticking out of her month and I used to find revolting. Then later on, I think he had to save some of his friends and had to look for and find the spaceship, which was under ground. Hopefully, someone can remember what this film was called, because I would really like to see it again. Thanks
Possibly “invaders from Mars”? Kinda sounds like it.
I’m trying to remeber the name of a sci-fi movie i watched as a kid in the 80′s. It was set in the future and there were these evil cyborgs using their ships to build this large structure in space, that once completed was a weapon and the kids had to stop them before they finished it. In the end they managed to seperate one of the cyborgs from the group and befriend him and use him to save the day.
Been baking my noodle for years now, i cant remember what it was called.
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